HDV Luminance Crushed When Digitizing?

Question

I just upgraded to Final Cut 6.
I've shot two interviews with a white background, with the intent to make it very white.
Shot with a Sony Z1U, I specifically lit the background and adjusted the iris so that it read 100% IRE via the zebras. I backed off the aperature by no more than 1/2 stop to just remove zebras from the white background, and then lit my subject based on the background exposure (e.g., I adjusted their lights, not the aperature).
Here's the problem: After digitizing the footage via firewire at both Apple Intermidiate Codec and Native HDV codec, the whites are crushed and the waveform monitor (in FCP) shows the white background as 80%! It should be at least 90%, if not 95%, minimum. 80% just should not be! Both the LCD on the camera and my Sony 8044Q 9" high-end monitor show me WHITE as the background, virtually blown out; yet on the FCP scope it's showing 80%.
My 23" Apple Monitor is calibrated using the Pro version of ColorVision calibration software, and yet, everything looks very warm on my LCD screen as well. Okay, perhaps there's going to be a slight shift in color due to differences in monitors (which is much more than I think it ought to be), BUT, the scope says 80%. So, something somewhere is going on (wrong), and if you have any idea how to help me figure it out, I would be quite thankful.
If it helps, here it is posted on my web site: http://www.thenaturalguide.com/Videos/VegVickiQT.htm
Thank you,
Larry

Answer 1

Greetings everyone,
Just want to add my two cents and testify that this is a real problem regardless of what JVC or Apple want to disavow. My comrade and I shoot with two JVC GY-HD100U's with the HDV 720p30 codec. We purchased the Firestore DR-HD100's (God bless their soul - I don't care what all the reviewers say about this product - they need a visit from the iPod development team) with the cameras and use those for majority of jobs. No problems with TC breaks. However take that backup tape that was simultaneously recording with the Firestore and perform long captures from tape, we encounter stream breaks. Both cameras have had this problem out of the box. We don't have a dedicated deck since we figured most work will come off the Firestores so when we capture from tape its from the camera. However the Firestores are limited by battery life and for long continuous shoots we fall back on tape. Hence the frustration of TC breaks. Could someone from JVC or Apple take some initiative and find the flaw? Thanks.
iMac 20-inch 2 GHz Intel Core Duo   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   1GB System RAM/256MB Video RAM